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Ecodesign is the incorporation of environmental considerations into the design and development of products or services. Ecodesign is incorporated in a similar way as other important requirements that are already taken account of in the design process, i.e. quality, legislation, costs, functionality, durability, ergonomics, aesthetics and health and safety considerations. As a result, the ecodesigned products are innovative, have better environmental performance and are of a quality at least as good as the market standard. This makes the use of ecodesign increasingly important for businesses, and leads to clear advantages for those companies incorporating ecodesign.
Ecodesign adopts an integrated approach to the relationship between products and services and the environment on three levels:
- the whole Life Cycle of the product or service is considered. The environmental impacts of a product do not only arise during its manufacturing, use or when it has become waste, but throughout its entire life cycle. It includes the extraction and transport of resources needed to manufacture the product, the manufacturing processes, distribution, use and maintenance, reuse and the treatment of its waste.
- the product is considered as a system. All the elements that a product needs to develop its function (consumables, packaging, energy networks etc) must also be taken into account.
- a multicriteria approach is considered. All different environmental impacts that can be generated by a product system along its life cycle are assessed in order to avoid trade-offs between different impact categories (e.g. resource depletion, greenhouse effect, toxicity etc).
This integrated structure facilitates the use of ecodesign in combination with other IPP tools. | 
